Butcher, what you are proposing has merit however from my limited understanding, this is a Steam issue, they would need to code this into their search filters. However, no search algorithm presently exists for this and it would be difficult to implement as it would need to constantly search for updates throughout the day to identify those mods that have been updated. The current Steam Mod search mechanism relies on tags applied by the mod developer at time of upload.
Whilst this game is still receiving updates, the biggest of which was recently new netcode and update to 64bit code, most Mod creators have limited time to apply to the regime of constant updates so you might find that a lot of them are waiting for a more stabilised version (less frequent updates) of the vanilla game to exist.

thanks for taking the time to give me such a well thought out response. i guess steam does have better channels of communication to voice opinions. but hell, i dunno squat about computers however i bet Someone could make that happen and imagine how streamlined searching mods would be everywhere. lol plus huuuuge insentive for modders to keep stuff up-todate or fear missing priority placement. ill take my high ass ideas somewhere more appropriate, again dope work.

That's not quite true, though, Aussie. When you have subscribed to mods, you can then filter them by most recently updated.

So the framework is there, it just needs to be expanded to the rest of the Workshop system. But that's still entirely up to Steam to do so.